


Between the Fire and the Water

by JessaLRynn



Series: The Enigma Variations [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Mild Angst, The Author Regrets Nothing, not really a song fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 03:57:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15878055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessaLRynn/pseuds/JessaLRynn
Summary: Sometimes Rose dreams that she is dreaming, that her whole life with him is as ethereal as the illusory storm that rages beyond this quiet place. She knows that she should go back. She knows, more often, that he thinks she should go back. They both know she can never go back and they both know why.





	Between the Fire and the Water

There is a storm raging outside the library window. Rose Tyler smiles softly at it when she enters the room, then slowly moves over and flips the switch that lights the fire. Then she finds a seat, half way between the window and the fireplace, on a warm, soft leather sofa. She closes her eyes, and falls into herself, and listens to the thunder and the sound of the rain.

Earlier today, they visited her mum. Rose hasn't quite found a way to let it go, not completely, and sometimes, she still looks at the life she's left behind. She knows, inside her deep where she never shows anyone, that she has left it behind, irrevocably and forever. If tomorrow comes and she finds that the security of a chance to return to Earth is gone forever, she will not mourn it like she probably should. She may catch glimpses of that life over her shoulder, but it is not what is before her and she knows it like she knows her name.

Her mobile rings and she answers it with a smile. "Where are you?" the Doctor's familiar voice asks, and the warmth that goes through her has nothing to do with sitting between the fire and the water.

Or maybe it does. "The library," she answers, invitation in her tone. She can practically hear his smirk. He's got her number, in more ways than one.

"Be with you in a mo'," he promises and Rose shivers as she rings off.

Sometimes Rose dreams that she is dreaming, that her whole life with him is as ethereal as the illusory storm that rages beyond this quiet place. She dreams that she wakes up in her pretty pink bed in her every day world and drags herself to a job that never blew up and never held her attention. It is only a dream, though, and she wakes, sometimes, with mixed feelings. She knows that she should go back. She knows, more often, that he thinks she should go back. 

They both know that she can never go back and they both know why.

There is nothing simple between them. She is not a woman in love with a man. If she were, if he were, this crazy longing might not make them wonder.

The Doctor enters the room with his feet bare, and slings the heavy leather jacket over a rack by the door. He finds her watching the window and a smile tries to fight its way on to his face, but there is a reason it is storming in his ship's imagination. Instead of smiling, then, or looking at her, he draws the shade and turns to a corner of the room.

A cedar chest is opened to reveal a large number of warm, plushy blankets, and he pulls out several of them, then spreads them on the floor at her feet. He pulls pillows from the nearby furniture and nods in satisfaction at his creation. 

When the Doctor turns to her at last, his eyes are like night, and they hold her. She is not the small thing that he fears he will one day crush, nor is she the tiny candle he suspects he will one day snuff out, but in moments like this, when she can feel his power and see the lightning in his eyes, she has to wonder.

"Rose," he whispers, and holds out his hand. 

She nods as she takes it, because she knows he is afraid now that she will not. She has seen him, today, his dark side, his anger, his righteous rage. He has tried to return her to her old life, fearing for her safety, penitent for his perceived sins. 

Rose cannot leave the Doctor, any more than she can stop breathing, because she knows what she has seen. Within the anger, there is terrible pain, within the darkness, a light that burns wholly incandescent. She has seen him, only him, as he really, truly is, lost and weary and always searching, and if she has ever wanted anything from him, it is to see his reality and not his mask. 

She goes to him, then, her eyes never leaving his, unashamed to show him her desire, to let him see what is in her, now that he has shown her, however reluctantly, what is within him. She bares her heart with a kiss to his lips, just as she bares her body with a twist and a gentle gesture.

His eyes are as hungry as hers as they rake over her flesh. He has seen it before, often enough, her blue eyed lover, and yet he always makes her feel as if what he is looking at is being revealed to him for the first time, a miracle. 

They remove his clothes together, a practiced dance that never gets old. Tonight, she wants to touch him, and he lets her, knowing that he wasn't the only one afraid of losing them, today, of losing this. She nips and licks and runs her hands all over his body, memorizing again the planes and angles and slight imperfections, all the sheer normalcy of his form that blends together to make him a thing of impossible beauty. He sighs for her and moans for her and calls her name, telling her in every language but her own that he loves her and loves what she does to him.

She takes him into her mouth because she loves the noises he makes, loves the way he fights, even the pleasure, even this. Because she loves him. When his hips buck, when his back arches, when his hands are in her hair and the words coming from his lips are gloriously filthy, she knows that she has won.

And so she surrenders.

She surrenders when she releases him, when she lies back against the blankets, when she parts her thighs and touches herself, all under the watchful blaze of his haunted, haunting eyes. She surrenders it all to him when he enters her, and it's just as well that she has.

When she surrenders, she owns him. He moves so gently within her heat, his strokes the very definition of tenderness. He is taking her body by kneeling before her, a worshipful suppliant, a lover who knows her better than any man ever could. He devotes everything he has to her, and this is just as well, too.

When she owns him, he owns her.

They are hope and glory, together, starlight and the midnight sky. She takes his body as surely as he takes hers. She takes his hearts as surely as he takes the only one she has. She takes him, and everything he is, her Doctor, and he takes everything she is, his Rose. It is all bundled up together in the aching, throbbing, rushing, rising, sobbing, screaming maelstrom that is them. 

They move together in this celebration of life and possibilities. He is always so careful of her when he has frightened her, when he has frightened himself. His rough fingers are so delicate as they find the bundle of pleasure that he teases to push her over the edge. He pays no heed to his own body, she thinks, losing himself, instead, in watching her shatter beneath him again and again. 

When the pleasure and the endurance become too much for even him, he is still so tentative, so giving. She whispers encouragement to him, pleading with him to give in to his need, to let her see him as he falls. The sheer beauty of his naked soul ensures she comes undone one more time in the final throes of his passion-drenched movements. 

They collapse together in their little nest of blankets and the storm outside the window has calmed to a soft summer rain. She cradles him to her and he whispers her to sleep with words of comfort, solace, unity, togetherness. 

She knows she cannot give him anything like his kind of forever, but she also knows she loves him, darkness, light, storm, and laughter. She will give him her forever, it is his to keep with him, even when she is gone.

Some day, the way she loves him will make her into the flame he has searched for all his life, the fire that never burns out. Some day, very soon, she will take those final steps to become herself, something that neither time nor Time Lord can ever tame. 

They do not know this as they lie, safe and home and naked in each other's arms. All she knows, his Rose, is that she will love him as long as she draws breath. All he knows, her Doctor, is that he has given her his forever, too.


End file.
